NFL coaches have adopted the idiom that when it comes to a starting quarterback: “Better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t.”

So, despite the precocious preseason of Teddy Bridgewater, the Minnesota Vikings made it official Monday, naming Matt Cassel the starter in Week 1. Cassel is blue-collar. Nothing fancy. He’s been Pro Bowl material. He’s been expendable. Released. Now reborn.

In Cleveland, even Brian Hoyer’s own head coach says he needs to get better. But it is the veteran getting the call over rookie Johnny Manziel.

NFL coaches like to know what they’re getting; even if what they’re getting isn’t necessarily ideal.

Rookies are being shunted out of runner-up positions, too. Tennessee Titans quarterback Zach Mettenberger has completed 31-of-44 passes for 417 yards and a touchdown over the last two weeks — best in the whole league. Charlie Whitehurst has been out of the lineup with an injury to his throwing hand.

But Monday, coach Ken Whisenhunt said Mettenberger will start the season buried in third place on the depth chart behind Jake Locker and Whitehurst. Sometimes the learning curve can be harsh and long.

So while Bridgewater is the quarterback of the future in Minnesota, the present belongs to Cassel, who gets a reprieve in a career that had been on a downward spiral since he was benched and released in Kansas City.

Cassel has been steady in preseason while Bridgewater has been a mini-sensation with a 117.1 passer rating. Of course, that also came against defences that weren’t always of A-team quality. That all changes opening weekend.

NFL coaches prefer experience at the helm. And, Cassel has experience — if not always the type of experiences he might’ve liked.

“I’ve been through a lot in my career,” Cassel told reporters. “I’ve been through the ups, through the downs. I’ve been through the highs and the lows, so at this point, nothing really surprises me in my career. So I think because of those, it calluses you to a few different situations that as a younger player, I might not have taken it as well.”

With Manziel’s debut as a starter also postponed, and with Chad Henne playing ahead of Blake Bortles in Jacksonville, it means that for the first time since 2007 no rookie quarterbacks will start in Week 1. That was the year JaMarcus Russell and Brady Quinn were the first-round quarterbacks. And everybody knows how well that turned out.

Russell played himself out of the league and Quinn never quite played himself into it.

The Jags have never wavered in their unified proclamation that Henne, the veteran, would start Week 1 and Bortles, the No. 3 overall pick, would learn as his understudy.

From Jimmy Clausen to Christian Ponder the stories of hurried potential that ultimately went unfulfilled are legion. So, it is that Bridgewater is content to wait, watch and learn. “As I stated once I got drafted, I felt like this was the perfect situation for me,” Bridgewater said. “Right now, I’m just able to learn, sit back and continue to learn.”

The situation in Cleveland is different. It would appear unless Hoyer orchestrates a Lazarus-type revival of the franchise, Manziel is likely to take over. Head coach Mike Pettine already has installed a package of plays for Manziel in games that Hoyer starts.

It’s almost as if they’re just waiting (some might suggest hoping) for Hoyer to fail.

As general manager Ray Farmer intimated, this will be Manziel’s team. Not from day 1, perhaps. But soon. “I think he is right where he’s supposed to be. I laugh because it’s four weeks into his first training camp and everyone is waiting to see Steve Young run out the tunnel. I don’t know where the reality in that lies,” Farmer said, via ESPN.com. “It’s like anything else. If you’re learning a foreign language, guess what, you’re not going to go to Spain tomorrow and in four weeks feel like you’re fluent in the language and just start talking. It just doesn’t happen like that. You may be able to communicate, but not effectively.”

ROUGH RIDE

Weston Dressler’s dalliance with an NFL career has been short and not-so-sweet.

The CFL star signed in the off-season with the Kansas City Chiefs, but never caught a pass in pre-season.

He rarely even saw the playing field in games. Monday, he was among 11 players cut, immediately sparking speculation on social media that he could be returning to Saskatchewan.

Dressler had five 1,000 yard seasons with the Roughriders. But the NFL isn’t exactly enamoured with 5-foot-7, 179-pound receivers, unless they come with the name “Welker” plastered on the back of a jersey. Dressler had only one pass thrown his way this weekend and it went incomplete. The only time he touched the ball in pre-season play came on a 19-yard kickoff returns.

“If Weston did come back, that would be a plus,” Roughriders head coach Corey Chamblin told local reporters. “Still, you never know with guys is how they came back, do they want to come back to their old team and are they in shape because the game is different (to the NFL)?”

REPEAT OFFENDERS

The season hasn’t even started and already a pair of the NFL’s bad boys are in the doghouse.

Lions’ defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh is getting a talking-to from his own head coach, this after being flagged for a late hit on Jags QB Henne.

Baltimore Ravens defensive tackle Haloti Ngata wasn’t flagged for kicking Washington’s Shawn Lauvao, but he could still be facing a fine for playing loose with the rules of the game.

Ngata said his actions came out of frustration that Lauvao had hit cornerback Dominique Franks late on a running play. “No disrespect to Shawn because we know each other. It was the heat of the moment, and just was mad that he tried a late hit ... I was just trying to protect my player.” Now he may have to find a way to protect his wallet. Ngata has been disciplined several times by the NFL. In 2010, he was fined $15,000 for hitting the face of Ben Roethlisberger, which broke the nose of the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback. In 2011, Ngata was fined $15,000 again for lowering his helmet into the back of New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez.

Lions coach Jim Caldwell is feeling his own frustrations as he becomes the latest to attempt to channel Suh’s aggressive nature. “We don’t cut any corners, we don’t pull any punches. We talk about the issue,” Caldwell said, “we talk about what needs to be straightened away, like most families would do. We don’t dance around issues and I think we can get them corrected that way.”

Since Detroit selected Suh No. 2 overall in 2010, he has been fined more than $210,000 by the NFL, including $165,294 for stomping on the right arm of Green Bay’s Evan Dietrich-Smith.